Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to my mentor and my friend Mr. Darryl Roberts. If it hadn't been for him I would probably have never written this story.

This is Zack.

I thought spring break was to be for relaxing. Heck, since Ty and his children moved in with Tip and me and Ty hired Mark, I've probably lost twenty pounds. I've been home a day and people have been examining my melons and my hot dog.

Mark and I went to our apartment after everyone else had gone to bed. We were sitting on the sofa and Mark looked at me, "Daddy, you promised that you would take care of my overripe melons tonight with that little wiener of yours. Let's get with it so I don't have to suffer any more."

I pushed Mark down on the sofa and undressed him. He was laying there naked and I looked at him. I started to laugh, "Jeez, these melons aren't what they seem to be and that little pickle couldn't satisfy a mouse. I think I'll go back to school."

I started to walk away. Mark didn't move, "Yeah, go ahead. This merchandise is so hot that you know you won't be able to handle it. Get your fat body undressed and relieve the pressure that is building or there might be an explosion."

I complied and we had the best love making session we have probably ever had.

We moved to the bedroom and didn't even take a shower.

I woke up in the middle of the night and Mark's not so little pickle was moving against my backside. I maneuvered so he was able to penetrate the uncharted waters of the unknown. He released the flood waters of the Nile inside me. He had woken up and was holding me tight. He held me on his little pretzel stick, "Now are you going to do as you're told mister?"

I pretended like I was crying, "I'll do anything you want Master but please don't hurt me."

Mark extracted his penis and it felt like a foot long hot sausage was exiting my body. I whispered, "Sir, help me. I've been raped."

Mark laid on top of me, "Young man, I think you need to get your facts together. Your case will never hold up in court. I believe that I was the person being taken advantage of. Now let's go to sleep. I need to be up in the morning to take care of four little people."

Mark cuddled against me and I felt like all was right with the world.

When I woke the next morning, I looked at the clock. It was 8:30 AM. The downstairs was deserted. I checked the children's rooms and they were gone. I was standing there wondering what was happening when the doorbell rang.

I forgot that I was dressed only in my briefs and answered the door. David was standing there and he took one look at me and asked, "Where's Mark?"

I hadn't heard Mark come in the back door, "Zack, get away from the door or everyone in the neighborhood will be coming to check you out."

Mark started signing to David, "What's up dude?"

David signed back, "Grandpa wants to know what we should wear?"

Mark answered, "We'll just wear a nice shirt without a tie and a pair of khaki slacks. Oh yeah, you should probably wear a jock strap or something so you don't make the teachers drool."

David was nearly bent over laughing but responded, "Yeah, I'll tell Zack to tape your hot dog to your leg. We'll see you at the school."

When David had left, Mark told me what the conversation was about and I thought I was going to fall on the floor from laughing. Mark announced that he had to take Barbie and Sarah to the play group. I need to get my ass in gear if I was going to school with him.

When he returned, I still wasn't ready so he told me to check with Dr. Robinson and David to see if I could go to the school with them.

This is Mark.

It's not even ten o'clock and I'm exhausted. How exhausted am I going to be by the time Zack leaves next week when spring break is over? I'll probably be in a wheelchair.

Mr. Harrison and the class were doing math when I arrived and he asked that I help the children who were having problems since there was a special assembly shortly. He obviously didn't know that I was going to be involved. I was glad that we hadn't said anything to the children.

I was able to help a couple of young people before the public address system came on, "Mr. Harrison, would you please take your class to the gym?"

I walked with Bobby as we went to the gym. When he saw who was sitting on the stage, he looked at me, "You knew what was happening didn't you?"

I nodded yes and went and took the remaining seat on the stage. I looked out at the assembled people and saw Zack sitting next to Billy. There seemed to be a lot of adults sitting against the back wall.

After all of the students were seated, Dr. Plummer came forward, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are fortunate to have a special guest with us this morning. I overheard Billy Jefferson and his brother Bobby and his sister Becky talking about this young man and asked if he could talk to you. I would like to present Mr. David Wright and his friends Dr. Stan Robinson and Mr. Mark Leavitt."

The audience applauded.

Dr. Robinson had been signing what Mrs. Plummer had said to David. When she moved aside David took my microphone and spoke very slowly, "Good morning boys and girls, I am glad that I can be here with you. I know I speak funny and I can't hear what you are saying so I have asked Grandpa Robinson to come be my ears and Mr. Leavitt to be my voice."

He looked at the audience. "Since I can't hear when you applaud. You will need to do something else. So why don't we practice. Why don't you just raise one fist and pump it up and down and I'll be able to see what you are doing."

David started to sign and I spoke what he was saying, "When I was born I probably looked like the rest of you. No one realized that I couldn't hear until I was about four months old. My parents took me to a bunch of Doctors and no one could figure how to fix my problem. They sent me to a special school where I learned how to talk with my hands. Fortunately I am able to read really well and I am good at math and I love doing science. The only problem is that sometimes I would make mistakes. Sometimes if I made a mistake, I can smell my mistakes but if there is any noise I can't hear them."

David stood, "That's enough about me do you have any questions?" He motioned for me to go out into the audience which I did.

Hands were up all over the gym. David pointed to some of the older children first. They had good questions and David answered them very well and satisfied their curiosity. David pointed to a young man who obviously was visually impaired. He had a cane. The young boy who I would guessed to about ten asked, "Mr. Wright, are you saying that you don't know anything about music?"

David looked at me after he saw what Dr. Robinson signed and said so everyone could hear. "Mark, please bring that young man to the stage." I helped the young man up and we went to the stage.

David took my microphone, "What's your name?"

I was surprised when the young boy wasn't intimidated. "What's it to you mister? You don't really care, but my name is Devin Carter?"

David got a very funny look on his face, "You're very wrong, I do care very much. Devin, can you tell me what color shirt I have on?"

I looked at Dr. Robison and he shrugged his shoulder. Neither one of us knew what David had in mind.

Devin looked at David like he was confused why David would ask that but answered, "Mr. Wright, everything is just a blur. I can't even tell what you look like. The only way I can get any idea what something looks like is to touch it."

David asked, "So you can tell what color something is by touching it?"

Devin looked disgusted, "Mr. Wright, you can't tell anything about colors by touching something. I will never know what colors look like."

David smiled, "Thank you Devin that is the same as me and music. I'll never be able to sing because I don't know what music sounds like. Sometimes if sounds are loud enough, I can feel them and I can see people playing instruments but I haven't a clue what the instruments sound like."

Mrs. Plummer came forward, "David, I'm sorry to interrupt but we need to get the gym ready for lunch. Boys and girls, let's show Mr. Wright and his helpers how much we enjoyed the presentation." The children stood and pumped their hands three times.

This is Zack.

I would never have believed that 400 children could sit so still for an hour. They were not even bothered by the person who was roaming around taking pictures.

Billy's class was one of the first to be dismissed and he hugged me as he left. I went to talk to Mark. Dr. Plummer had some people with her. She introduced the lady first, "David, this is Mrs. Shoemaker. She is the President of our PTO. She has something she would like to give you."

Mark was signing for David. Mrs. Shoemaker spoke "David that was a wonderful presentation. You must have done this before. We have a small token of our appreciation for showing the children how lucky they are. Devin, I'll visit with you later to give you a check for helping Mr. Wright."

David looked at the check but Mark was signing that he shouldn't say anything except thank you which David did.

Mrs. Plummer introduced the next gentleman, "Gentlemen, this is Dr. Barclay; he is the Assistant Superintendent in charge of Elementary Education."

Mr. Barclay shook hands with the four people on the stage since Devin was still there. He started, "David, and the rest of you. I have a proposal for you. I would like for you to visit as many of our elementary schools as time will permit. What you demonstrated today to these young people needs to be shared with more young people."

Devin had a funny look, "Dr. Barclay, does that mean me too?"

"Yes Devin, it does. David using you in his presentation was a stroke of genius. It highlighted two different kinds of physical impairments. Stan, why don't you visit with me in my office after you have had a chance to talk about this? I know Devin's parents rather well, and I'm sure that they won't have any problem with the idea if they know you are involved."

Mark interrupted, "I need to leave to get the girls. Why don't we talk about this over lunch at our house? David, just so you know, we are not having any of those hot dogs or melons today. Why don't you and Grandpa Robinson walk Devin back to his classroom and I'll take the crybaby here with me."

As Mark and I were walking to his car, he told me what he had said to David. I stopped and started stamping my feet like I was throwing a tantrum, "But I wanted some of those hotdog and melon things."

Mark kept walking, "Then you'll need to go elsewhere."

We picked up the girls and took them back to the house. Mark had me set the table as he started to pull things out of the refrigerator. I looked at him and was amazed what he pulled out. He had some sort of salad with oranges and coconut and a macaroni salad that had ham, cheese, and green peas in it.

I looked at him, "When did you make this stuff?"

"Tip and Ty went running this morning and I couldn't leave the children here by themselves and you were still in recovery so I had to do something."

Dr. Robinson and David arrived and David was beaming, "Guess what happened. When we were walking Devin to his classroom and we met Billy's class as they were going to lunch and the children all gave me the clinched fist sign."

David switched gears, "Granddad, I need to get this check cashed so that I can share the $100.00 with you and Mark."

Mark put up his hand, "David, I don't want any money. The money was meant for you, so save it for when you get back to college. I'm sure that you will be receiving more if we do some more presentations. Now eat your lunch and stop sniveling."

During lunch Mark agreed to do presentations on any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday morning but not on a Monday or Friday. After lunch Dr. Robinson, David and Sarah went home to get ready for the arrival of Dr. Robinson's youngest son Brian and his friend Todd and their two guests.

Mark had us busy taking care of house chores since he was a day behind. He fixed dinner and went to pick up the children. David had come over and was waiting for the children so he could take Dr. Robinson's grandchildren home. As the children got out of the van they all gave the clinched fist signal. Bobby was excited, "David, I have a note for you from Devin."

David opened the note and read it and got tears in his eyes. He handed the note to Mark.

Dear Mr. Wright,

Thank you for being here today. You have shown me that we may be different from other people but we still are important.

Thank you

Devin

David was almost shaking, "Did Devin really write this?"

Poor Bobby was confused, "David, I guess so, he gave it to me. I know that he has a special computer with funny symbols. I don't know him very well since he isn't in my class."

Mark seemed to know what to do. "Okay, you Robinson people need to go home and get your clothes changed and Zack and David can take you to the park after your snacks. I need to fix dinner. I have to cook an old shoe so it can get tender."

Another Author's Note: If you would like to read more of this story and other interesting stories, you might like to visit

Thank you once again Uncle Ed! I love the way that he shows us things about people who are somehow different from average.

As some of you may already know, I am what is called Legally Blind. I know that term is confusing, but in my case it means that I don't see well enough to drive a car. Before I started getting Cataracts, my vision was right around 20/200. A simple explanation of that is that if someone with 20/20 vision can see something at two hundred feet, before I would be able to see it as well as they did, I would need to be twenty feet away from it. Of course it isn't anything close to that simple, but I hope you get the idea. There are measurements and rules put into place to determine who is and who isn't, Legally Blind, and they are somewhat complicated. The people who are in charge of making rules and such have changed some of them over the years, and it gets rather annoying to have them change the names of things for what seems no particularly good reason. For example I know several people that were born prematurely and they have, among other things, a condition that was caused by their being in an incubator and supposedly receiving too much Oxygen. Many years ago, when I was growing up, I learned the name of that condition, "

Retrolental fibroplasia", I honestly had a terrible time pronouncing it. It was called that for many years. If you are an Eye doctor like our friend Doctor Kelly Deforest, you can understand what that name means, but it is rather complicated and technical. In any case, in the last few years, (don't ask me how many) they changed the name to retinopathy of prematurity . It is the exact same thing, but someone decided that the name needed to be changed.

You probably didn't need to know all that, but I was just giving you an example of some of my frustration as someone who has been almost blind all my life.

Let me give you another example of what I think of as real stupidity on the part of the people that are supposed to be helping people: When I started school in 1952, I had to spend part of my time in a special room called "The Sight Saving Room". Somehow it had been determined that anyone who didn't see well needed to have a certain environment. This confused me somewhat because we only had a few classes in this special room and the rest of the time we went to the same classes as the other kids did. Now my eye condition is such that I really need things to have good contrast or I can't really distinguish things very well.

In the regular classrooms, they had something like five lights hanging from the ceiling. They were huge hanging things with probably a 300 watt bulb in each one. They didn't give off much light, but there were huge windows in the classrooms that let in a lot of light. The chalk boards were black and the chalk was white. If the teacher wrote things large enough, and if I sat in the first row, I could usually read what she wrote up there. Yes, when I was in grade school, all my teachers were women.

Now remember I told you that for a few of our classes, they made us go to the sight saving room. That was a really big thing back then, to save the sight of us poor little kids that might otherwise go totally blind if they didn't do something for us. Did you notice the sarcasm there? Anyway let's visit that room. As you walk in, you notice that they have three rows of florescent lights, running the entire length of the room; There are at least four lamps in each fixture. The room is flooded with bright light except for the five or six bulbs that are flickering really badly, and giving me a headache, but we won't bother to replace those now will we? Remember that in the regular classrooms, the blackboards were in fact black and the chalk was white. In this room, the boards are all this puke colored green. And believe it or not, the chalk was a pale yellow color. Now just try to imagine how much contrast there was to that. For me to have the slightest possibility of reading anything written on that board, I had to be as close as the teacher who wrote on it was. She didn't like that. Some big wig guy who had studied vision "knew what was best for us" and made everything soothing and pale so it wouldn't hurt our eyes and make us go blind. I should point out that the bright lights were not necessarily a bad thing for some of the kids, since they were not Albinos and had no particular sensitivity to too much light like I did, but they decided that what is good for one person is obviously good for everyone so we got bright lights and green boards with yellow chalk. I know I am getting way off topic here other than to say that it is nice that Devin will get a lot better treatment today than I got when I was his age. I can't really speak to the deafness issues very well, but I know some people who have difficulty hearing, and they tell me that they had similar difficulties when they were in school as well. Let us hope that people get a better chance now than we got.